Women think we're whining weenies

I'm starting to think women have strange senses of humour.

I started thinking that last week when my wife accompanied me to the doctor's office where I was having "minor surgery" on a medically sensitive area we don't normally discuss in family newspapers.

I personally don't understand why they call it "minor surgery." There's nothing "minor" about someone wielding a sharp knife within shouting distance of such a vital region.

At this point, sympathetic male readers are reflexively covering their medically sensitive areas and curling up on the floor like boiled shrimp, whereas female readers are laughing cruel little laughs and looking for someone to whom they can make the following statement: "You know, that's NOTHING compared to the pain of childbirth!"

So there we were, in the doctor's office, my wife and I, studies in contrast. I was a little nervous (literary footnote: That's what we writers call "a classic understatement"). In contrast, my wife was happy as a clam, calmly playing some mindless game on her iPad.

Like magic, some random eight-year-old kid appeared out of nowhere, surgically attached himself to my wife's shoulder and began pointing at the screen and offering unsolicited tips on how she could score more points in the video game. "OK, you should shoot that star, and then, see that diamond, you should zap that," the kid would snort before helpfully chirping: "I started school today. I got new crayons. There's a gold one. I think it's real gold."

Then -- POOF! -- I was in a small room and being told to remove my clothes and lie down on an examining table covered in medical-quality tissue paper that disintegrates the moment you look at it, and then the doctor burst in waving a sword-sized scalpel and NOOOOOOO!!!

OK, what really happened was the doctor strolled in and politely asked how I was doing, to which I loudly replied: "Never mind ME? How are YOU doing?" I then ran through a checklist with the doctor to ensure he'd had a pleasant day, wasn't feeling jittery from drinking too much coffee and hadn't argued with his staff or loved ones.

Then I attempted to comfort myself by engaging my doctor in a business-like conversation. "So," I asked in what I hoped was a casual manner, "I guess you've done MILLIONS of these operations before?"

My doctor paused and frowned at me. "No," he muttered, "but we'll figure it out as we go along. Sort of trial and error."

Just as I was about to sprint naked from the room, my doctor chortled quietly to let me know he was just kidding around.

What you need to know now is that I was very brave during the entire procedure and, other than the fact I'm currently waddling around the way John Wayne did after a long day in the saddle, my medically sensitive area and I are going to be just fine. Thanks for asking.

On the way to buying ice cream before heading home, my wife, who was having a hard time suppressing an evil grin, drove the car while I stared bravely out the window.

It suddenly dawned on me that, because I was under doctor's orders to do nothing but rest for several days, I wouldn't be able to serve as a celebrity judge at a big weekend charity event in which dachshund owners get together to race their sausage-shaped pets.

I turned to my wife. "I can't go to WienerFest," I told her, sadly.

Since that moment, she hasn't stopped laughing. Which isn't very sensitive of her, but at least I'm not the only one in stitches.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 10, 2012 A2